$5000 budget Mustang

[Ron S]

Its 3 gallon, was talking to Chris Gonzalos at motorstate, he built a clear site glass in to Blue Balls tank which was visible from the drivers seat. He was saying you can really see the the level going down when your going through the turns.

[dontlifttoshift]

3 gallons! You don't mess around.

Thanks.

[Grim]

As far as the dry sump system goes, I ended up using an ARE oil pan with the LS7 pump, remote mounted a filter, and added a cooler with a bunch of duct work going to it. It totally fixed the problem, oil temps are actually a little too cool, and the water temps with the duct work never exceed 195, even under extreme, extreme duress.

Just finished the thread from post one. Amazing build. Got me wanting to go cut the floor out of something. Learned a TON from reading this thread. I'm really thinking about changing gears from building my LeMans for Auto cross to building something else and starting from scratch with a frame and roll cage to help with rigidity and keeping the weight down.

Glad to hear the cooling issue got solved.

When I read the part about you trying to "push" air through the radiator it did catch my eye and made me think you were looking at it wrong. I do a little "hypermiling" with my gutless family van and in hypermiling circles Aerodynamics plays a big roll. They spend a lot of time cleaning up cars aerodynamically and run into cooling problems. Its amazing when you can take a Civic that stock gets 47mpg and make it get 95 mpg when you get it figured out.

Let me try to change the way you look at cooling in the future.

Air is going to do the same thing as water and follow the path of least resistance. Think about a 4x4 when you cross deep water you create a bow wave in front of the truck. The water level in the engine compartment stays lower then the actual water depth in front of the truck because the movement pushed the water around the truck.

Air does the same thing as speed increases. Its going to pile against the front of the car and go around the car not through it. The fins in the radiator create resistance to air flow and can stall the air flow to some extent. The open area into the fenders that you had either created a path of least resistance for the air to bypass the radiator and the spinning tires might have even sucked the air out or pushed air out the front of the car stalling the air in front of the radiator. Your walling off that area was the right thing to do for sure but I think for a different reason then "pushing" it through the radiator.

At speed you want to create a low pressure area under the hood to suck the air through the radiator. Thats why in NASCAR they tape the front almost completely up and are still able to keep the temps in check. With the low chin spoiler and ground effect as the car passes over the track creates a tremendous amount of vacuum under the front of the car pulling air through the radiator and improving the amount of grip the front end gets at the same time. They run a soft spring to allow that car to suck down to the track surface for better aerodynamics and traction but when static they can pass the height requirements. Might have contributed to the floaty feel you got at speed as much as the springs you ran.

Course you could never block off the grill like as much as the do on a super speedway for auto cross but even a 1 inch drop in the front splitter could gain you a lot of cooling at higher speeds without any other changes if you run into problems in the future.


Now I need to catch up on the AMX build (actually read it before this thread).

Hope to make some events next year as my car improves and see your car(s) first hand.

[Ron S]

Just found this, thought I was the only one who thought the 33rd in the design thing at optima was odd.


http://www.myrideisme.com/Blog/budge...uring-mustang/

[avewhtboy]

Just found this, thought I was the only one who thought the 33rd in the design thing at optima was odd.


http://www.myrideisme.com/Blog/budge...uring-mustang/

Great write up on you and the event, I definitely need to attend this at least one year

[Norm Peterson]

Not at all, Ron.


Norm

[95riosnake]

One would have to assume those who awarded this car 33rd in design weren't fully aware how much work has been put into it, I've seen pictures of all the other cars from the event, and while there were definitely some top notch rides in attendance, I definitely didn't see 32 of them that surpassed yours Ron.

[lesingepsycho]

HA! This thread ought to be required reading (all 2100+ posts) for anyone judging this car by any means!

[John Wright]

HA! This thread ought to be required reading (all 2100+ posts) for anyone judging this car by any means!

Soooooo very true.

[blade]

I have been reading through your thread for about a week. What a great build!

[Ron S]

I'm still completely amazed that this thread is approaching 500,000 hits, that is a 1/2 a million hits on a build that I thought wouldn't show any interest at all. If I would have known I think I would have named it better.LOL Goes to show you that its not always about the money, sometimes its just doing something alittle different. The only thing I can say is build them the way you want them, not the way everyone tells you they should be. In the end, you really need to be digging the car from concept to long after its completed(if they ever are completed). Took this thing for a cruise Saturday, what a blast, I'm still smiling.

[Gitter Dun]

I haven't been on this site for awhile but I knew when I got here I had to see what you were up to. Nothing you do surprises me anymore and I think you are the ultimate grassroots race car builder.
Keep up the good work....your a great inspiration.

[zeusrotty]

Hi Ron, First of all I think your car is amazing. I am currently working on an 87 Porsche 944 that has an LS2 in it. It goes out for paint next month, and I was interested in knowing the exact brand of paint and the code you were using. My car would look crazy in that color!

[Z06killinSBF]

I think it's the same color as my car Grabber Blue. Mine is done in PPG, not sure on this car though.

[Ron S]

Yeah its 2010 Mustang Grabber blue, mine was Dupont waterborne paint though.

[ill steez]

Please please make a thread for this car.

Hi Ron, First of all I think your car is amazing. I am currently working on an 87 Porsche 944 that has an LS2 in it. It goes out for paint next month, and I was interested in knowing the exact brand of paint and the code you were using. My car would look crazy in that color!

[zeusrotty]

Okay. I will try to get it started today.

[Ron S]

I see the optima trailer is out for the 2012 show. Can't wait to see if this car gets any footage, maybe me getting lost in the forest on the autocross, or sliding the off the road course 1 of my 6 times(note to self:never change anything major on car before an event when there is no time for testing).

It was such a cool experience can't wait for the show. The redneck show and this are going to be the height of the TV season.

[LSXZ28]

Hey Ron - haven't talked to you in ages! How's the car running? Hope all is well! My son is 3 months old already, and my daughter is 2 - time flies, but I don't seem to get anything done LOL!

[Ron S]

Check it out.
http://www.lsxtv.com/news/video-musc...r-slow-motion/